The Thammasat University Library has acquired a new book that should be useful for students interested in literature, folklore, mythology, Egyptology, religion, sociology, and related fields.
Thomasina, the Cat Who Thought She Was God is a 1957 novel by the American writer Paul Gallico.
The TU Library collection has many other books about different aspects of cats.
The book tells of the cat Thomasina, who wakes up one day believing that she is Bastet the Egyptian cat goddess.
Bastet was a goddess of ancient Egyptian religion, worshipped as early as 5000 years ago.
She was originally a lioness goddess, and gradually was portrayed in artworks as a gentler cat.
Bastet was also a goddess of pregnancy and childbirth, possibly because of the fertility of the domestic cat. Bastet was also shown in artworks as the goddess of protection against contagious diseases and evil spirits.
Here are some thoughts about cats by authors, most of whom are represented in the TU Library collection:
I think all cats are wild. They only act tame if there’s a saucer of milk in it for them.
- Douglas Adams, Last Chance to See (1991).
Nothing divided people more deeply than how they felt about cats.
- Kingsley Amis, Difficulties with Girls (1988)
I recollect him one day scrambling up Dr. Johnson’s breast, apparently with much satisfaction, while my friend smiling and half-whistling, rubbed down his back, and pulled him by the tail; and when I observed he was a fine cat, saying, “why yes, Sir, but I have had cats whom I liked better than this;” and then, as if perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance, adding, “but he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed.”
- James Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson (1791).
The kitten has a luxurious, Bohemian, unpuritanical nature. It eats six meals a day, plays furiously with a toy mouse and a piece of rope, and suddenly falls into a deep sleep whenever the fit takes it. It never feels the necessity to do anything to justify its existence; it does not want to be a Good Citizen; it has never heard of Service. It knows that it is beautiful and delightful, and it considers that a sufficient contribution to the general good. And in return for its beauty and charm it expects fish, meat, and vegetables, a comfortable bed, a chair by the grate fire, and endless petting.
- Robertson Davies, The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks.
It is a very distinct tribute to be chosen as the friend and confidant of a cat.
- H. P. Lovecraft
Anyone who considers protocol unimportant has never dealt with a cat.
- Robert A. Heinlein, The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (1985).
How we behave toward cats here below determines our status in heaven.
- Robert A. Heinlein, To Sail Beyond the Sunset (1987).
One cat just leads to another.
- Ernest Hemingway, letter to his wife (1943)
All cats are mortal. Socrates is mortal. Therefore Socrates is a cat.
- Eugène Ionesco, Rhinocéros (1959)
Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want.
- Joseph Wood Krutch, The Twelve Seasons (1949)
Cats are rather delicate creatures and they are subject to a good many different ailments, but I never heard of one who suffered from insomnia.
- Joseph Wood Krutch, The Twelve Seasons (1949)
I like a cat because it does not disguise its selfishness with any flattering hypocrisies. Its attachment is not to yourself, but to your house. Let it but have food, and a warm lair among the embers, and it heeds not at whose expense. Then it has the spirit to resent aggression. You shall beat your dog, and he will fawn upon you; but a cat never forgives : it has no tender mercies, and it torments before it destroys its prey.
- Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Ethel Churchill (or The Two Brides) (1837)
We own a dog — he is with us as a slave and inferior because we wish him to be. But we entertain a cat — he adorns our hearth as a guest, fellow-lodger, and equal because he wishes to be there. It is no compliment to be the stupidly idolised master of a dog whose instinct it is to idolise, but it is a very distinct tribute to be chosen as the friend and confidant of a cat.
- H. P. Lovecraft, “Cats and Dogs”.
The cat is a wild animal that inhabits the homes of humans.
- Konrad Lorenz, Man Meets Dog
The idea, to a cat, that somebody else owns him is ludicrous.
- Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats: A Journey Into the Feline Heart (2002)
Anything that moves becomes for cats an object of fun. They believe that nature exists only for their amusement.
- François-Augustin de Paradis de Moncrif, A History of Cats (1727)
Translation: When I play with my cat, who knows whether she isn’t amusing herself with me more than I am amusing myself with her?
- Michel de Montaigne, Essays (1580)
I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior.
- Hippolyte Taine, epigraph for his book, Life and Philosophical Opinions of a Cat (1858).
When there was room on the ledge outside of the pots and boxes for a cat, the cat was there — in sunny weather — stretched at full length, asleep and blissful, with her furry belly to the sun and a paw curved over her nose. Then that house was complete, and its contentment and peace were made manifest to the world by this symbol, whose testimony is infallible. A home without a cat—and a well-fed, well-petted, and properly revered cat—may be a perfect home, perhaps, but how can it prove title?
- Mark Twain, The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson
A cat is more intelligent than people believe, and can be taught any crime.
- Mark Twain, Notebook, 1895
Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods.
- Christopher Hitchens, The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever
There are two means of refuge from the misery of life — music and cats.
- Albert Schweitzer
Time spent with a cat is never wasted.
- Colette
I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.
- Jean Cocteau
Arise from sleep, old cat,
And with great yawns and stretchings…
Amble out for love.
- Issa, Japanese Haiku
(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)